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Pasha Simenov.
The letter arrived at eleven.
Each morning Alexandra waited for it to come. Each morning after she had taken their son to school and settled their daughter in the flat, she waited for the sound of the postman on the landing outside. Each morning she heard him as he put his bag down, knowing that he was only regaining his breath, that he would pick up the bag and walk on.
She heard the noise on the stairs, the silence as the man paused outside and searched in his bag for the letter that was bound to come, then heard the next noise, the sound of the man lifting his load and continuing his climb to the floors above. The child was looking at her; she sat back at the table, trying to concentrate, disappointed that the letter summoning them to Kolpachny Lane had not come but relieved that they had not yet been rejected again.
The footsteps came down the stairs and past the flat, quicker, lighter, fading till she could no longer hear them. Alexandra smiled at her daughter and thought of her husband and son, heard the footsteps again, slower, more laboured, the sound of the postman climbing back up the stairs. The man stopping on the landing outside, the first corner of the envelope beneath the door. Thin, she thought, crossing the room, suddenly not knowing what she was doing, it was so thin, just as before. She knew what it meant, opening it, ignoring the time and date of the summons, realising that they had lost again, that they had lost for ever.
The words were a blur. She put the letter on the table and looked at her daughter, wishing suddenly that she and Yakov had not tried again, had never tried. Not for their sakes, but for their children’s. The girl was still playing. Alexandra picked up the summons again and saw the date and time of the appointment, realising it was for today and knowing that they had delayed the letter so that she and Yakov would miss the appointment, so that she and her husband would give them even more reason to refuse, them again. No time to contact him, she was thinking, no way she could contact him at the hotel in any case. There was just enough time, she was thinking, looking at the clock. If she hurried, if the trams weren’t delayed.
Five minutes later Alexandra left the flat, her daughter wrapped against the cold, and began the journey. The trams seemed even slower than usual.
Alexandra reached the building in Kolpachny Lane five minutes before the appointed time and was told to wait till after lunch. She sat in the waiting room and tried to stop her daughter crying; after seventy minutes she was ushered in and instructed to sit in the chair she had sat in last time and the time before, facing the official who had spoken to her the last time and the time before.
There were two stacks of files on the desk in front of him. He confirmed her name and selected a folder from those on his left, reading through it then checking the details against the information on the summons she had received that morning.
‘Why is your husband not with you?’ she knew he was going to ask, knew that it would be a trick, that they had already found out where her husband was, that the faceless men from Petrovka had been waiting for him as he had feared in his dreams.
‘I don’t know,’ she would lie, holding her child tight to her, ‘the summons arrived only this morning, he left before it came.’
‘And you don’t know where your husband went?’ There would be the first note of an interrogation in his voice.
Be brave, Alexandra Zubko, she would tell herself, do not let them frighten you. Remember that they have refused you twice, that they have already decided to refuse you a third time.
‘It doesn’t matter where my husband is,’ she would wish already that she had not answered the official in such a manner, would know it was too late, ‘the invitation is to me, I am the one you must tell, not my husband.’
The man began reading from the file, not bothering to look at her, reading the words he would forget the moment she left, the words she would remember for ever.
Fifteen minutes later Alexandra left the office on Kolpachny Lane and turned for home.
Not today, Yakov Zubko, she knew now why she had pleaded with her husband that morning, why she had been afraid of the sudden cold, of the winter it would bring, of what else it might visit upon them. For God’s sake not today.
It was twenty three minutes past one.
The American family lunched at twelve. Yakov Zubko watched them from the side of the foyer: the mother and father, the two children. They had been at the hotel eight days and he had seen them on the third. Each day after that he had made a point of meeting them, of helping them with their bags, each day after that he had smiled at them. On the fifth day one of them had smiled back. Then and only then had he risked checking their names on the hotel register, noting both their nationality, which he had already guessed, and their date of departure.
By the time they finished it was twenty-five minutes to two. Yakov Zubko saw them waiting for the official bus and remembered where all the tourists went on their last day in Moscow, began to plan his afternoon so that he could make his approach to them when they returned.
At fifteen minutes to two the unmarked Zhiguli left its position overlooking Dmitrov and returned to the militia headquarters on Petrovka. By two fifteen the next shift had taken over. Although there had been two visits to the black marketeer that morning, Iamskoy had instructed the militiaman to log only one: a further visit that afternoon was almost certain, two probable, three remote but possible, and a total of five visits on the second day of the surveillance was the point at which the team on duty could close their snare. Routine but important Iamskoy had decided. The following morning, he had therefore decided, he would arrest the suspect Simenov and those who brought their goods to him.
The flat was quiet. Alexandra looked around it, knowing what she was about to do, sensing that Yakov Zubko would understand. The furniture was sparse and functional; three of the chairs round the table had been bought over the years, but the fourth was a family heirloom, a wedding present from a beloved grandfather, now dead. Carefully, taking care not to damage it, she carried the antique down the stairs, perched it on top of her daughter’s push-chair, and tied it in place with a piece of string. Then she gathered the girl in her arms, and went to collect her son from school.
He was ten minutes late. When he came out she kissed him then set off, still carrying her daughter, along the route her husband had taken that morning. The walk took twenty minutes, Alexandra managed the child for the first ten before she became too heavy.
The men outside the shop saw her coming, nudging each other to look at her, scarcely bothering to hide their amusement. They were all young, dressed in fur coats and lounging against the estate cars parked outside the shop. One of them was helping another man, someone she took from his clothing to be a foreigner, to load a desk onto one of the cars. She had heard about the shop, that it was where the foreigners came to buy the equipment for their offices and the furniture for their homes, one of the places to which the authorities turned one of their many blind eyes. The foreigner turned to watch her, slightly fascinated, slightly embarrassed by the image of the woman pushing the pram with the chair on top, the two children walking bravely on either side of her. He had been a correspondent in Moscow for six months, and had learnt sufficient Russian in the time to understand what the young men in the fur coats were saying, enough to understand the sexual innuendo of their remarks. The driver he had hired to take the desk to his office was becoming impatient. He told the man to wait, watching the woman as she struggled to push the pram and its load through the door, no one moving to help her, and followed her inside, calculating how much the man in the shop would charge him for such a chair, was not surprised when the man gave the woman less than a thirtieth of what he estimated it was worth. Outside it was getting dark. He watched the way the woman folded the notes into her purse and tucked the purse carefully into the pocket of her coat, the way she lifted the girl at her side into the pram and pulled the boy close to her, the way she disappeared down the road, wanted to know what she was doing, why she was doing it, wanted to wish her luck, tell her that one day all would be well for her. Behind him he heard his driver start the engine of the estate car; he turned away from the woman and went back to his office.
The American family returned to the hotel at five, their arms laden with parcels wrapped in the colours of the Beryozka shops. Yakov Zubko watched them from the side of the foyer. The official guide was laughing and joking with them, for one moment he feared that she had already arranged the same thing he had been planning since he had first seen them, then she turned away to talk to another group. He crossed the foyer, arriving at the lift as they did, holding the doors open for them and helping the children with their parcels, then followed them in, pressing the button to close the doors before anyone could join them.
‘Good afternoon,’ his English was formal, almost mechanical, from the books he had studied since he had lost his job as an engineer. ‘I hope you enjoyed your stay in Moscow.’
The husband looked at him suspiciously. ‘Yes, thank you,’ he replied carefully.
The doors were shutting.
‘Everyone goes to the Beryozka shops on their last afternoon,’ Yakov Zubko explained, trying to relax them. He had only one chance, he thought. The doors were almost shut. ‘How old are the children?’
An elderly couple pushed forward and tried to step into the lift. The husband saw them and jerked the doors open for them. Yakov Zubko understood why he had done it, that the man knew why he had joined them, what he was going to ask them. One chance, he told himself, already slipping away.
The elderly man thanked the American and asked for the fourth floor. The Americans were in rooms 607 and 609, two floors above the others, Yakov Zubko remembered. The chance not quite gone. The lift stopped at the fourth floor and the other couple stepped out, the doors closing and the lift gathering speed again.
‘How old are the children?’ he asked again, looking at the denims they were wearing, not disguising the fact, letting the parents know there was a reason.
‘Twelve and ten,’ said the mother, not looking at him.
He nodded, looking back at the denims, hoping he was right but fearing he was wrong. ‘Mine are the same age.’ They all knew he was lying. ‘May I buy the children’s denims from you before you leave?’
The lift passed the fifth floor.
‘No.’ It was the third time the husband had rejected such a request that day. Be careful, his company had advised him when he informed them where he was taking a holiday, the Russians were always looking for people like him, especially in a profession like his, always seeking ways of entrapping them. ‘No,’ he said again emphatically, turning away.
Yakov Zubko sensed that the man would not change his mind and told himself there would be other families, other people who were not afraid, admitted to himself that it was already the beginning of winter, that there would be few other tourists before the weather set hard and the hotel found out about him.
The wife was still looking at him. ‘I understand,’ he was saying to her, the lift stopping and the husband and children getting out. ‘Thank you anyway.’ His finger was drawing the pattern on the wall, the woman still looking at him, at the pattern. He knew it would not work, that he should not do it, should not risk so much, the words coming anyway, telling her who he was, what he was. Telling her everything.
‘B’shavia Haba a b’Yerushalaim,’ he spoke slowly, quietly, committing himself.
She was looking at him, knowing what he was saying, what he was telling her, knowing who he was, what he was, what he was trying to do, her finger repeating the pattern on the wall, the six lines, two triangles, one inverted upon the other. The star of David. ‘B’shavia Haba a b’Yerushalaim,’ she replied.
‘Next year in Jerusalem,’ confirmed Yakov Zubko.
In the corridor the husband was waiting for his wife to join him and the children. ‘We leave tomorrow,’ said the woman, ‘could you collect our cases at ten forty-five.’
Alexandra finished the matvah at six and placed it in the oven, then she laid the table and bathed the children. When they were dry she took their best clothes from the wardrobe they all shared and dressed them, then she went to the bathroom along the landing and washed herself. It was six thirty. From the same cupboard she took her one good dress, the dress she had worn when she had married Yakov Zubko eleven years before, and put it on. The night outside was dark, the cold penetrating the glass of the windows; she pulled the curtains tighter and wondered what she would say, how she would tell her husband. At nine his brother Stanislav, Stanislav’s wife Mishka and their two children would join them, would share the food for which she had sold the chair that afternoon; before that, Alexandra had asked, before that, they had insisted, she would have one hour alone with Yakov Zubko and their family.
It was almost time. From her handbag she took the forms she had been given that afternoon by the man in the office on Kolpachny Lane and placed them on the table, laying the food around them. The matvah, there had been no time on that dread night for the women to prepare anything other than unleavened bread; the single roast egg for new life; the salted water for the tears of the slaves and the horse-radish for their bitterness; the extra plate and wine glass for the stranger who might come alone. The last thing she placed on the table, in a position where Yakov Zubko must see them first, were the haroseth sweets, then she called her son and daughter to her and stood facing the door, a child on either side and an arm round each.
The children were frightened, unsure what was happening; Alexandra herself had no tears left to cry.
She had waited another ten minutes when she heard him on the stairs: the same pace, the same slight delay as he searched in his pocket, the same scratching noise as he turned the key in the lock. She leant forward and lit the candle. He was a good man, she thought, a good husband and father; she did not yet know how she would tell him.
Yakov Zubko pushed the door open, carrying the small plastic bag of food he had brought from the hotel, and entered the room. He felt tired and cold, glad Alexandra would be there to welcome him, hoping that the children would not be asleep so that he could kiss them goodnight.
He saw the shadow on the wall, the flame of the candle on the table, the dishes around it, his family waiting for him, his wife in her wedding dress and the children in their best clothes. He did not understand, did not know what to think, looked again at his wife, at the table. Saw the matvah, the roasted egg, the bowl of salted water beside it, the place for the stranger. Saw one thing above all, the haroseth sweets.
The beginning of the festival, he was thinking, the commemoration of the night the Angel of Death passed over the land of Egypt, the beginning of the Feast of the Passover, the celebration of the delivery of his people.
The haroseth sweets, he could not help think, the symbol of the sweetness of freedom.
Alexandra reached to the table and handed him the papers she had been given in the office on Kolpachny Lane. ‘B’shavia Huzu a b’Yerushalaim,’ she said the words, did not know she had said them.
The same words he had said to the American woman in the lift in the hotel, the words she had understood and said back to him.
Not quite the same words. One word of difference for which they had been prepared to sacrifice everything. Not ‘Next year in Jerusalem’, not the saying which kept Yakov Zubko and the likes of Yakov Zubko in hope through the long Russian winters, the other saying, the saying for which so many longed but which so few now heard.
‘B’shavia Huzu a b’Yerushalaim.’
‘This year in Jerusalem.’
‘We are going home, Yakov Zubko.’ Alexandra closed the door behind him and shut the family Zubko off from the rest of the world. ‘We are going home to Israel.’
* * *
Yakov Zubko had been born in the Ukraine in 1951; despite the poverty of his parents he had shone at school, both as an athlete and as a mathematician. His record, whether at the University of Kiev where he graduated as an engineer or during his compulsory military service, had been impeccable. He had twice been promoted in the precision tool factory where he had first worked. In 1973 he had married Alexandra, then a teacher, the following year they had moved to Moscow, where he had secured a job in the ZIL car works; within six months of his new appointment he had again been promoted.
Yakov Zubko was a model of the Soviet system. He was also a Jew.
In 1977, after considerable soul-searching, he and Alexandra had applied to leave Russia for Israel. The request was rejected, partly on grounds of state security, Yakov Zubko having served in the Red Army, partly on grounds which were not specified, and they had joined what would shortly become the swelling ranks of the refusniks. Within three months Yakov Zubko had first been demoted then lost his job totally; since then they had survived on Alexandra’s salary during the period she worked as a teacher, and whatever he himself could earn whenever he found casual work. Each month since then they had sold a possession in order to eat, each month since then they had also tried to place a few more roubles in the tin they kept under the mattress for the day they would be called to Kolpachny Lane and told they could leave. Increasingly, not through design, simply to help his family survive, and to save the money for their journey home, Yakov Zubko had been drawn into the fringes of the black market.
The following year Alexandra had borne him their first child, a son whom they called Nicholas. The boy was delivered late at night in the maternity wing of the local hospital; partly as a joke, partly as an act of defiance, they referred to the place where he had been born by the name of the place they thought they would never see, the town called Bethlehem. In the winter of 1978, as they carried their son home, in the later years when they told him, there was no way they could know the awesome inheritance of that family secret.
Their second child, a daughter, had been born in the same hospital three years later.
In 1979 his brother Stanislav Zubko had applied to leave Russia with his wife Mishka and their son Anatol; like Yakov and Alexandra they were refused. Later that year Mishka bore Stanislav’s second child, a girl whom they named Natasha after her great-grandmother. Like her great-grandmother, who only saw her once, Natasha was small and pretty, with large eyes, and like her great-grandmother, to whom she was the most precious creature in the world, she was cursed with asthma. Even on the hot summer days when the two families walked in Gorky Park or went in the car which Stanislav was sometimes able to borrow to the fields outside Moscow they could hear her suffering.
Just as there was no way of knowing the consequence of the secret of the birthplace of the boy called Nicholas Zubko, so there was no way of knowing the devastating legacy of the illness of the girl called Natasha.
In 1980 Yakov and Alexandra Zubko applied again to leave Russia and were again refused. The next year the distant uncle who had met the formal requirement of inviting them to Israel had passed away and they had spent the next two years finding another relative to meet the requirement. In 1984 Alexandra had been officially invited by a third cousin to join him: when she left the office in Kolpachny Lane that afternoon she and Yakov Zubko had waited three months, two weeks and six days over seven years.
* * *
The night was darker, colder,
Yakov Zubko kissed the children goodnight and returned to the kitchen; Alexandra had made coffee, they sat together at the table and read again the authorisation from the OVIR office on Kolpachny Lane.
‘They can’t change their minds,’ she asked, ‘they can’t stop us now?’
‘No,’ he lied, ‘they can’t stop us now.’
‘How much do we need?’ They had already worked it out, worked it out every week as they counted the roubles they had saved in the tin beneath the mattress: the rail fare to Vienna – it was quicker and safer by air, but cheaper by train – the cost of the exit visas, the money they would have to pay to renounce their Soviet citizenship.
Yakov Zubko took a single sheet of paper and began writing down the figures, carefully and neatly, not looking up, not able to look at his wife, both knowing they did not have enough, both knowing they would never have enough, even with the money in the tin under the mattress. He glanced round the room, aware of what Alexandra was thinking.
‘Twenty for the chairs,’ he began, ‘twenty-five for the table. Forty, perhaps forty-five, for my watch.’
‘Don’t forget my ring,’ said Alexandra, sipping her coffee.
‘Your ring,’ he said, writing it down, ‘we should get thirty for your wedding ring.’
In the hotel overlooking Marx Prospekt the American family finished their dinner and went to bed, the wife lying awake and thinking of what her husband had said, knowing that he was right, yet remembering that she had known from the first day who the man in the lift was, what he was. Thinking of her loyalty to her husband but thinking of the man with whom they shared a faith.
‘There’s an American family at the hotel,’ Yakov Zubko was unsure whether he should tell his wife, sensing she had known for a long time what he did, ‘they are due to leave tomorrow morning, they said for me to collect their bags.’ He realised that she had known from the beginning. ‘The children always wear denims, the wife has perfume, nice perfume, the husband always carries a camera.’ Alexandra waited, afraid to hear. ‘I think,’ he said cautiously, ‘that they are Jews, I think they will give me something.’
He turned the paper over and began another list, guessing what the American family might give, calculating what he might get from Pasha Simenov, and adding it to the money in the tin under the mattress. ‘We might do it,’ he said at last, not looking at his wife, wondering how much he was lying for her, how much he was lying for himself. ‘We might just do it.’
He looked at Alexandra, seeing the way she was smiling at him, recognising, not for the first time, how strong she was. ‘We will do it, Yakov Zubko,’ she said, ‘we will go home.’
In the hotel the American woman thought again about her husband, thought about the Russian Jew who wanted only to take his family to Israel.
In his apartment on the other side of the city Iamskoy switched off the television and telephoned militia headquarters. The afternoon shift had been back an hour, he was told; they had logged one firm suspect, one possible. He thanked the desk man and went to bed. Definitely tomorrow morning, he thought.
* * *
Yakov Zubko rose at four thirty, not needing to be quiet, he and Alexandra having lain awake all night. She pulled a coat over her shoulders and sat with him at the table. At five o’clock he kissed her goodbye, left the flat, and made his way to the metro station at Sviblovo; at a quarter to six Alexandra dressed the children and prepared them for their last days in Russia; at six precisely Major Valerov Iamskoy left the militia building on Petrovka. The morning was cold, even colder than the day before. At six thirty Yakov Zubko began work, at eight thirty the American family took breakfast. He made sure he was in the foyer as they went to the restaurant, made sure the woman saw him as they left, hoping for a sign, any sign, of confirmation, seeing none. At twelve minutes past ten the militiaman accompanying Iamskoy noted that the suspect Pasha Simenov had appeared at his door.
At fifteen minutes to eleven, as the woman had told him the previous afternoon, Yakov Zubko made his way to the rooms of the American family; there were four large suitcases, he took two, remembering that the entire possessions which he and Alexandra would take with them when they left Russia would fit into one. Please may he have understood the woman correctly the previous afternoon, he prayed, please may Pasha Simenov be at home.
The husband was at the reception desk, the wife talking to the guide. Yakov Zubko waited for her to turn and say something to him, the first doubts creeping up on him. He went back to the bedroom and collected the remaining cases. The family was almost ready to leave; he loaded the cases onto the coach and saw that the woman was still talking to the guide, knew then that she had not been able to disobey her husband, that he and Alexandra would not go home.
‘There’s one more bag by the children’s beds in 607,’ the woman turned to him briefly, not smiling. Watching him turn away from her, feeling the sense of betrayal. Seeing him for the last time, knowing that one day she would see him again. He cursed her under his breath and returned to the sixth floor. A maid was already cleaning the parents’ room; he went past, hearing the sound of the vacuum, into 607. The room was empty. He knew why the woman had told him to go back, knew it was because she could not face him, but began to check the wardrobes anyway, looking between the beds. Beneath one was a Beryozka bag; inside were three pairs of denims, new, unused, the manufacturer’s label still on them, two bottles of French perfume, and a Konica camera. ‘We are going home, Alexandra Zubko,’ he said, the relief coming upon him, ‘we are going home to Israel.’
When he returned to the foyer the American woman had gone.
It was almost eleven o’clock.
On the corner overlooking the street called Dmitrov the militiaman logged the first visitor to the house of Pasha Simenov. ‘We’ll pick up the next one,’ Iamskoy told him.
It was less than three hours till the end of their shift. ‘What happens if there isn’t one while we’re on?’ asked his subordinate.
For someone from the building on Petrovka, Iamskoy thought, the militiaman was remarkably naive at times. ‘There will be another one,’ he said simply.
Stick close to Iamskoy, the militiaman remembered they had told him at Petrovka, and you’ll learn a lot. ‘The next one,’ he agreed.
Yakov Zubko turned into Dmitrov, planning the conversation he would have with Pasha Simenov, working out how he would make sure that the man paid him enough. Be careful, Alexandra had told him as he left the flat that morning. In front of him he saw Pasha Simenov leave the house and begin walking up the road towards him. Suppose Simenov didn’t recognise him, he thought, suppose he had just done a deal, had no money left, suppose Simenov didn’t want to talk to him in the street.
At the top of the road Iamskoy cursed his luck and instructed the militia to log the fact that the suspect Simenov had left his house and turned east.
‘Good morning.’
Yakov Zubko knew Simenov was not going to speak to him, was going to walk straight past him. They still needed five hundred roubles, he thought; he saw the look in the other man’s eyes, saw Simenov was not looking at him, nor at the bag he was carrying.
Iamskoy saw the Beryozka bag, knew what was in it and reached for the ignition.
‘Across the road and left at the corner,’ Simenov ignored the greeting and pointed with his arm as if he was giving directions, as if that was what he had been asked. Yakov Zubko saw the car, realised why Simenov was afraid, turned to follow his instructions.
For one moment Iamskoy thought he was wrong, then knew he was not.
Yakov Zubko was reacting instinctively, following Simenov’s arm, as if he was in no hurry, as if he was clarifying the street directions he had been given. ‘Up the road fifty metres, through the block of flats.’ Simenov was talking quietly, quickly. ‘Car park on the other side, steps in the far corner to a tram stop. Good luck.’ It was almost, Yakov Zubko would think in the months and years he would have to remember the moment, as if Simenov knew what he was doing, as if he was sacrificing himself so that the Jew and his family could go home. ‘Thank you.’ He made himself pause, made himself move slowly, crossing the road in the direction Simenov had indicated. In the Zhiguli, Iamskoy hesitated for the second time. ‘Screw him anyway,’ he thought aloud, half to himself, half to the militiaman, ‘we can always plant something on him.’
